The Web of a Thousand Spiders
by Nokomiss
Summary: Power, she senses. This paper is power.


The Web of a Thousand Spiders

* * *

Luna likes tip-toeing her fingers along the spines of books, the smooth unbroken spines and cracked, crumbling leather.

Her favorite books tell her everything that had come before, and she often finds herself alone standing between shelves bowing under the weight of history tomes. Not many students venture deeply into these shelves, but Luna had never thought much of what other students did.

She imagines the floor was coated in dust, showing the footprints where she follows the same path every time she ventures here, with ghostly imprints of other people's footprints slowly disappearing under the weight of time.

It disappoints her there was no dust, nothing to show age in this corner of antiquity, but Madam Pince had given her that look she often got, the one that spelled out derision and bewilderment, when she had suggested that they stop dusting in order to allow ghostly footprints to appear.

A monstrously large book catches her eye, but as she reaches for it (_The Lineages and Histories of the Founders of Hogwarts_) a smaller book, brown leather and cream pages, is much more enticing. She pulls it out of the shelf (a cloud of dust assaults her) and finds that the title is, _The Storie of Slytherin the Slye_.

A bit of parchment slides out of the book as Luna flips through velvet soft pages, floating to the floor like a swan sliding through water.

Serendipity, Luna thinks, and reaches toward fate.

* * *

She cannot make sense of the words on the page, written in a graceful masculine hand. She traces her dry-tipped quill along the curves and slopes and journey of letters, trying to imagine who had written such things.

Power, she senses. This paper is power.

She slices the webbing of her hand on the paper, a single pale line of red appearing on delicate arching skin. She thinks the paper did it on purpose, like it was trying to steal her life by reaching through her skin and taking who she is.

Three of the sides are smooth, smoother than Luna had thought paper could be, while the final side is ripped and jagged.

This was once part of something larger, and Luna thinks that explains the nonsensicalness of the words.

Maybe the malice as well.

* * *

Ginny lets out a shocked scream after she playfully grabs the page away from Luna, giggling about love notes and secret admirers.

Luna has never seen freckles stand out so much against pale skin, and asks Ginny if she needs some sunlight.

Ginny ignores her and stares at the writing with nightmare eyes. "Where did you get this?" she demands angrily, grabbing Luna's arm. Later, Luna discovers a pretty purple bracelet decorating her milk white arm.

"Is it truly bad?" Luna asks. Ginny has dropped the paper, is staring at her fingertips as though they are stained with ink. Ginny is silent, then makes Luna swear she will not tell her secret. Luna agrees.

Ginny whispers her a fairy tale about a wicked prince and a damsel in distress and a knight wielding a heroic blade and a slain dragon.

"How magical," Luna breathes, and Ginny slams her book shut, nearly catching Luna's fingers between the infinite pages.

"Destroy that," Ginny tells her, not quite looking at the bit of parchment. "Burn it, tear it into bits and toss it in the lake, bury it in the Forbidden Forest. Just don't keep it."

Luna doesn't see the harm in paper and ink.

* * *

She sleeps with the paper tucked safely under her pillow where no one can steal it. She feels power and malice and yearning in her dreams, and when she wakes she feels more vibrant than she ever has.

* * *

She lets Ginny forget about the parchment (she thinks) and then suggests that she put her memories of the wicked prince in a Pensieve. Luna has one (newly bought, the idea came to her in a dream) and she wants her closest friend to be free from the chains of memory.

Eventually, Ginny agrees. (Luna does not remember the spell, the rush of power and hatred and control.)

That night, Luna placed the Pensieve on her bed and slowly reaches into it.

He is more handsome than she imagined.

* * *

Luna's dreams are now more vivid, with a dark haired boy with a malicious smile and empty eyes whispering secrets to her.

_The diary_, he reminds her nightly. _The diary_.

_Save me_, he pleads, calculating and opaque. Luna doesn't want him to fade away, cries _Tom, Tom, I will save you_, but she does not know how.

_The diary is gone_, she tells him. _Ginny says it was destroyed by a basilisk's fang_.

His smile is a thousand knives through her heart, piercing and teasing and weakening her.

_Destroyed_, she says again, though she had nearly forgotten the diary.

* * *

"It's pure," she whispers as she watches blood drip from the cut on her arm onto the paper, which draws it in like drought-parched land soaks in rain. "Pure."

She knows Tom cares about such things, so she wants to show she can too.

* * *

"The page, the book," she says desperately in the Great Hall, looking at the brightest students who ignore her studiously. "It's killing me."

No one says anything to her, but she can hear murmurs of, "Loony Lovegood's at it again," down the table, spreading like a stain on a new tablecloth.

"You have to believe me!" she screams, and suddenly a thousand eyes are on her and no one moves a muscle. She whispers, "You have to believe me," but no one does.

She can't help the laughter that bubbles through her, though it is not her own.

* * *

That night she pulls out her butterbeer cork necklace and slides it over her head. Her mother had promised it would protect her from harm (_Special magic, the kind they don't teach in school_, her mother laughs, _but only if you don't tell_) and Luna needs all the protection she can get.

She does not go to bed, and does not touch the piece of paper that is slowly stealing her soul, but instead returns to the library.

She walks the same path Tom Riddle had half a century before, ends up at the same shelf and pries out _The Storie of Slytherin the Slye_.

"Tell me your secrets," she says to the book, opening it right there and beginning to skim the words since she doesn't have enough time left to read them all. "I need to know."

The book does not answer, and eventually Luna's eyes are watering from reading the tiny print in the dimness of the nighttime library. She moves to the corner, hunched over and unwilling to succumb to sleep. He will be there, and she can't, won't let this continue.

Tears begin to flow, and as her shoulders begin to shake she looks up with nightmare-infested eyes to see Ginny, who understands.

"No one believes me," she whispers, voice cracked and empty.

"I didn't dare tell anyone," Ginny replies.

"He's terrible and he's wonderful and I never want to go to sleep again," Luna confesses.

Ginny wraps her arms around her, kisses her forehead (warmer than Tom's touch, Luna notices, warmer and softer and gentler) and murmurs that she should burn it.

_I can't,_ Luna knows, _he won't let me.

* * *

_

In her dreams, his voice grows more insistent. _Get the diary, make me whole._

Luna can't, she's done all she can and the diary is gone, it's destroyed and all that's left is this page filled with names and dates and who Tom is.

_I don't believe that._

His touch on her skin is like a thousand spiders covering her in their webs, wrapping her tightly with feather light bonds.

_Find it._

Ginny didn't know what had become of her nightmare book, only that it was destroyed and gone and no one was left to hurt her or steal her anymore. Luna tries to tell Tom, tries to break free from the silvery web that envelops her, but Tom does not listen.

_You are mine and you will do as I say.

* * *

_

She tries to tell them, tries to say, "Tom," but her lips will not form the name.

Ginny doesn't understand anymore than anyone else, she has forgotten (_Obliviate!_ and a kiss on the cheek) about the page and the Pensieve and Luna sobbing in her favorite corner of the library.

In the night, leaking blood and tears on a page of her dream lover's soul, wishing she could rip it into shreds like someone had told her ages before, Luna no longer knows who she is.

She wakes up screaming, dragging ragged nails down her face and sobbing that she can't change anything.

Her dormmates finally notice, they finally notice her and her blood tears and cry out in shock and horror.

"Get the Headmistress!"

"Get the Head of House!"

"Get Madam Pomfrey!"

It's a threefold prayer for her safety but Luna just clutches at her face, wishing she knew who was underneath her skin. Was he still there, was she alone?

"Tom!" she manages to cry, but her dormmates are staring at her in a new way, a frightened, uncertain way, as though they know that they ought to help but can't bring themselves to touch her. (She's diseased.)

She feels his power, and hears herself tell her dormmates that she's fine, just had a nightmare, and suddenly Luna wishes that she was still crying.


End file.
